9/15/23, 2:37 PM CONCATENATE function - Microsoft Support

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Use CONCATENATE, one of the text functions, to join two or more text strings into one string.

Important: In Excel 2016, Excel Mobile, and Excel for the web, this function has been replaced
with the CONCAT function. Although the CONCATENATE function is still available for backward
compatibility, you should consider using CONCAT from now on. This is because CONCATENATE
may not be available in future versions of Excel.

Syntax: CONCATENATE(text1, [text2], ...)

For example:

=CONCATENATE("Stream population for ", A2, " ", A3, " is ", A4, "/mile.")

=CONCATENATE(B2, " ",C2)

Argument name Description

text1 (required) The first item to join. The item can be a text value, number, or cell
reference.

Text2, ... Additional text items to join. You can have up to 255 items, up to a
(optional) total of 8,192 characters.

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Examples
To use these examples in Excel, copy the data in the table below, and paste it in cell A1 of a
new worksheet.

Data

brook trout Andreas Hauser

species Fourth Pine

32

Formula Description

=CONCATENATE("Stream Creates a sentence by joining the data in

population for ", A2, " ", A3, " is ", column A with other text. The result is
A4, "/mile.") Stream population for brook trout species is
32/mile.

=CONCATENATE(B2, " ", C2) Joins three things: the string in cell B2, a
space character, and the value in cell C2. The
result is Andreas Hauser.

=CONCATENATE(C2, ", ", B2) Joins three things: the string in cell C2, a
string with a comma and a space character,
and the value in cell B2. The result is
Andreas, Hauser.

=CONCATENATE(B3, " & ", C3) Joins three things: the string in cell B3, a
string consisting of a space with ampersand
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Data

and another space, and the value in cell C3.

The result is Fourth & Pine.

=B3 & " & " & C3 Joins the same items as the previous
example, but by using the ampersand (&)
calculation operator instead of the
CONCATENATE function. The result is Fourth
& Pine.

Common Problems

Problem Description

Quotation marks Use commas to separate adjoining text items. For example: Excel will
appear in result display =CONCATENATE("Hello ""World") as Hello"World with an
string. extra quote mark because a comma between the text arguments was
omitted.

Numbers don't need to have quotation marks.

Words are jumbled Without designated spaces between separate text entries, the text
together. entries will run together. Add extra spaces as part of the
CONCATENATE formula. There are two ways to do this:

Add double quotation marks with a space between them " ".
For example: =CONCATENATE("Hello", " ", "World!").

Add a space after the Text argument. For example:

=CONCATENATE("Hello ", "World!"). The string "Hello " has
an extra space added.

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Problem Description

The #NAME? error #NAME? usually means there are quotation marks missing from a
appears instead of Text argument.
the expected result.

Best practices

Do this Description

Use the ampersand & The ampersand (&) calculation operator lets you join text
character instead of the items without having to use a function.
CONCATENATE function.
For example, =A1 & B1 returns the same value as
=CONCATENATE(A1,B1). In many cases, using the ampersand
operator is quicker and simpler than using CONCATENATE to
create strings.

Learn more about using operation calculators.

Use the TEXT function to The TEXT function converts a numeric value to text and
combine and format combines numbers with text or symbols.
strings.
For example, if cell A1 contains the number 23.5, you can use
the following formula to format the number as a dollar
amount:

=TEXT(A1,"$0.00")

Result: $23.50

Related
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Use the TEXT function to combine and format strings.

Learn more about using operation calculators.

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